"Bess dazzles as a one-man band, writing, playing and singing everything into an ambitious, genre-tripping groove-athon... a shape-shifting hybrid of dub, hip-hop, ska, reggae, funk and classic early '70s soul."

- Jim Musser, No Depression

"D. Bess (as he's known on stage) creates his unique tunes from the ground up as he builds the music on itself tier by tier using a stage's worth of pedals and instruments. The labor-intensive results set an emotive backdrop for high times, low times and the unyielding roller coaster in between, creating positive pieces of poetry and winding loops for the listener to dissect."

- Flagstaff Live

BIO:

Born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, D. Bess is a one-man band who now calls Chicago home. Since 2010 he has been honing the strange art of live-looping (recording various instruments on the fly) to create a full band sound. Although reggae is the foundation of his sound, D. Bess meshes blues, ska, dub, funk, Hawaiian, hip-hop, folk and country into his original grooves.

His first full-length solo album, Man vs. Bear, features reggae legend Toots Hibbert of Toots & The Maytals trading vocals with D. Bess on the ska song "Oh Carolina", for which they shot a music video in Kingston, Jamaica the same year.